LHVnews: President Barack Obama addressed questions that the United States had underestimated the threat of Islamic State attacks, noting that the US and its partners had “acute awareness” of the threat, but that its difficult to strike a non-governmental group.

"The concerns about potential ISIL attacks in the West
have been there for over a year now and they come through periodically,"
Obama told reporters at a Group of 20 summit in Turkey on Monday, using an
acronym for Islamic State (IS, also formerly known as ISIS).

The president promised that the US has not underestimated
the ability of IS to strike Western countries militarily, but because the
terrorist group does not conduct "conventional warfare," it is
difficult to stop.

"We play into the ISIL narrative when we use routine
military tactics that are designed to fight a state that is attacking another
state,” he said. That's not what's going on here. These are killers with
fantasies of glory who are very savvy when it comes to social media and are
able to infiltrate the minds not just of Iraqis and Syrians but disaffected
individuals around the world."

"It's not their sophistication or the particular
weaponry they possess but it is the ideology that they carry with them and their
willingness to die," Obama added.

There was no way to prevent the coordinated attacks in Paris
on Friday night, Obama said.

"There were no specific mentions of this particular
attack that would give us a sense of something that we could provide French
authorities, for example, or act on ourselves," he told reporters.

Obama has been on the defensive since Friday because of
comments he’d made a day earlier claiming that IS has been "contained.”

"I don't think they are gaining strength,” Obama told ABC News'
George Stephanopoulos in an exclusive interview on Thursday. "From the start,
our goal has been first to contain, and we have contained them.”

Republicans have called on the president to send more ground
troops to Iraq and Syria to battle IS, a possibility Obama dismissed on Monday.

"It is not just my view but the view of my closest
military and civilian advisers that that would be a mistake," he said.
"Not because our military could not march into Mosul or Raqqa or Ramadi
and temporarily clear out ISIL but because we would see a repetition of what
we’ve seen before, which is if you do not have local populations that are
committing to inclusive governance and who are pushing back against ideological
extremes, that they resurface, unless we’re prepared to have a permanent
occupation of these countries.”

Critics, especially those vying for the GOP nomination, have
also attacked the president for not doing enough to battle the threat of IS,
but Obama noted that those who are complaining haven’t offered a viable
solution.

"If there's a good idea out there, then we're going to
do it," Obama said. "I don't think I've shown a hesitation to
act."

If "folks want to pop off and have opinions about what
they think they would do, present a specific plan," he added.

The president indirectly rebuked Ben Carson, the Republican
frontrunner, for a comment last week in which the former neurosurgeon said that
he had better intelligence on the ground in Syria than the White House does.

"If they think somehow that their advisers are better
than my joint chiefs of staff or my generals on the ground, I want to meet
them. And we can have that debate," Obama said.

He also took a jab at Donald Trump, another GOP candidate.

"What I’m not interested in doing is posing or pursuing
some notion of American leadership or America winning or whatever other slogans
they come up with that has no relationship to what is actually going to work to
protect the American people and to protect the people in the region who are
getting killed and to protect our allies and people like France,” Obama said.
"I’m too busy for that.”

He also took Republicans to task for their calls to slam the
door shut on Syrian refugees fleeing the violence wrought by IS in their home
country, saying that "would be a betrayal of our values." Senator Ted
Cruz (R-Texas), who is also running for president, has said that the US should
bar Muslim refugees from Syria from entering the country, while still welcoming
Christian refugees.

"That’s shameful, that’s not American, that’s not who we
are. We don’t have religious tests to our compassion,” Obama responded on
Monday. "Our nations can welcome refugees who are desperately seeking
safety and ensure our own safety. We can and must do both."

At the same time, the president also called on Muslims to
turn away from the violence and extremism that jihadist groups foment, adding
that the religious fundamentalism they seek is the antithesis of true Islam.

"I do think that Muslims around the world…have to ask very
serious questions about how did these extremist ideologies take root,” Obama
said.